Thursday, May 20, 2010

Random



Well, this will never do.  Once a month is just not going to cut it!  I guess I have just had enough going on lately that it pushes motivation to write in the blog to one of the rear burners.

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Since my last post...

Hunter has turned 10.  My first child is a decade old, only a year after meeting him!  It gives me a brain-ache.

Kaleigh has readjusted to having Mommy to herself during the days.  She was just getting used to the setup when the other foster children came here.  After taking our first family vacation and returning home to move the kids to a long-term foster home, it was almost like starting over from the beginning with Kaleigh.  It was a rough few weeks, exacerbated by weekend visits with her overly indulgent grandparents, during which she needed to re-learn the boundaries and expectations.  She has done well though, and this week I've finally begun to feel that she - and I - are balanced again, each of us individually and together.

I celebrated my first Mother's Day as a Mommy.  It was wonderful to have my whole family, including my AF Pilot brother and sister-in-law home from New Jersey for an extended weekend.  We were able to give my mom a few nice surprises for Mother's Day, and my entire family contributed to making my first Mother's Day a very sweet one!

As per our original agreement at the time of adoption, we sat down with the grandparents last week to discuss visitation after May and going forward.  We were a little concerned that they would try to fight our decision, which was to go to a non-formal type of visitation, the traditional type of relationship children would have with their grandparents.  We don't want a scheduled visit "once a month," and we don't want a monthly overnight visit.  We told them we were committed to making sure they see the kids at least twice a month, sometimes more, but that we wanted it to be more of a traditional relationship, where they might come to family get-togethers and activities and holidays, where the kids might come and spend a Saturday once in awhile, and where there might occasionally be a special situation where the kids will spend the night.  To our pleased surprise, and in merciful answer to our prayers, the grandparents agreed.  So after this weekend, we can hope to continue to further the kids' understanding and experience of what a real family is.

Ryan attended caddying classes and passed the caddy test at the Country Club where he has been wanting to caddy since last summer.  He is hoping for lots of opportunities to caddy this summer so that he can earn enough money to pay for his choir trip to Rome next summer.

I have met several times with our social worker and filled out TONS of paperwork.  That's right - as hard as it is to believe, it has been TWO YEARS since we became licensed foster parents, and it's time to renew our license.  The past month has been filled with meetings and home visits and paperwork, and our license will be renewed by the end of this week.

Tomorrow is our four year wedding anniversary.  I can't believe it's been a whole four years.  And I can't believe it's been only four years.  It seems like we've been together forever.  I have a lot more to say, but I think I will save it for its own post :).  Anyway, I am taking Randy out of town this weekend for our anniversary.  He knows we are going somewhere, but he doesn't have any idea where.  I love surprises (when I am the surpriser, not so much when I am the surprisee).

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I will be homeschooling Hunter this summer.  He has taken summer school every year for the past several years.  Officially, this is because he spends half days in special ed classes.  Unofficially, he is a typically energetic boy, and previous caretakers did not want to put time or energy or thought into finding ways to keep him entertained that did not involve video games.  Anyway, summer school and special ed classes for the last year and a half have not improved his academic standing, and he is a very bright boy who is behind rather than learning impaired.  So we have made a family (parental) decision that I will work with him this summer in the areas where he is behind, and see how much we can get him caught up.  Depending on how things go this summer, we may continue to homeschool him in the fall.  I am already doing some pre-preschool homeschooling with Kaleigh, and plan to continue that this summer, and move into preschool work in the fall.

In the next few weeks, I have a lot of work to do around the house.  We have family coming right after the boys get out of school, and then my Bestie is coming sometime after that (we haven't worked out the details yet).  The house needs to be in MUCH better shape than it is now.  But, I feel this growing into a post of its own, especially since the current post is long enough as it is.

Now, off to study for my final final.

Happy Thursday!

1 comment:

  1. Hurry!!! It's almost been a month again, and I want a new blog post to read!!! =) <3

    ReplyDelete